Flutterby™! From 2021-07-04 to 2021-07-31

Sunset beginning

[ related topics: Photography ]

Sunset continuing

[ related topics: Photography ]

$30 Chromecast + discarded TV + some scrap wood to make a French cleat mount = digital picture frame for the kitchen. And, yeah, I probably could have just done a this with a USB stick, but updating the playlist from elsewhere is handy.

[ related topics: Photography Technology and Culture Television Woodworking ]

Among today's shop projects: Just some holders to augment our air filter capacity with fans we already have...

[ related topics: Photography ]

Just building a little box to protect these cheap calipers

[ related topics: Photography ]

I've been using MacOS since joining my current employer, so much so that we even bought a MacBook Air for Charlene and have been migrating a lot of our computing that direction. I have a lot of complaints about the Apple environment, including the fact that so much stuff seems to be just an attempt to upsell to subscription services, and finding alternatives to Adware like "Music" (formerly iTunes) involves installing large portions of the open source ecosystem.

It was kinda like Open Source was the only place where the business model was coupled to the user model enough that you could get software which wasn't just trying to passive-aggressively fleece you out of spending more money on confusing data models.

But, of course, Open Source doesn't have a business model, which means that this was inevitable: Audacity 3.0 called spyware over data collection changes by new owner

The list of data includes the operating system and version, the user's country based on their IP address, non-fatal error codes and messages, crash reports, and the processor in use. Under data collected "for legal enforcement," the software collects "data necessary for law enforcement, litigation, and authorities' requests (if any)," though no specifically what data is collected in such cases.

The new owner is the same folks who own Musescore. I'm a Musescore subscriber, partially because it's a way to get MIDI files of sheet music I'm interested in for voice practice, but given that the Musescore web site is basically a sheet music piracy site, I'm wondering how this collaboration with law enforcement is gonna play out...

[ related topics: Free Software Apple Computer Interactive Drama Music Nature and environment Invention and Design Software Engineering Law Work, productivity and environment Law Enforcement Macintosh Currency Gambling ]

NAACP Legal Defense Fund: Nikole Hannah-Jones Issues Statement on Decision to Decline Tenure Offer at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and to Accept Knight Chair Appointment at Howard University

[ related topics: Law Education Furniture ]

When spidering the web page breaks, so you break down and spend the money to subscribe to the API, and then they change the API JSON, without notice.

[ related topics: Currency ]

Hey lazyweb: What's the current best photo organizing software? I'm trying to use Google Photos, and it suuuuucks. Pay or free, Mac or Linux or even cloud.

[ related topics: Free Software Photography Open Source Software Engineering Macintosh ]

Picture of unicycle square dancing in 1972, in Sacramento Magazine, originally published in the Sacramento Bee

The Epsilon COVID-19 variant is here, works its way around the vaccines: Science Magazine: SARS-CoV-2 immune evasion by the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant of concern. DOI: 10.1126/science.abi7994

Abstract A novel variant of concern (VOC) named CAL.20C (B.1.427/B.1.429), originally detected in California, carries spike glycoprotein mutations S13I in the signal peptide, W152C in the N-terminal domain (NTD), and L452R in the receptor-binding domain (RBD). Plasma from individuals vaccinated with a Wuhan-1 isolate-based mRNA vaccine or convalescent individuals exhibited neutralizing titers, which were reduced 2-3.5 fold against the B.1.427/B.1.429 variant relative to wildtype pseudoviruses. The L452R mutation reduced neutralizing activity of 14 out of 34 RBD-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). The S13I and W152C mutations resulted in total loss of neutralization for 10 out of 10 NTD-specific mAbs since the NTD antigenic supersite was remodeled by a shift of the signal peptide cleavage site and formation of a new disulphide bond, as revealed by mass spectrometry and structural studies.

Via https://twitter.com/ScienceMagazine/status/1412290256901128195

[ related topics: Invention and Design California Culture ]

After a certain time programming, there's really only one hard problem in computer science: input focus.

[ related topics: Software Engineering ]

I might yet come around on this Texas "everybody gets to concealed carry" thing: Texas cyclist shoots driver who deliberately crashed into his riding partner

The motorist, 26-year-old Jose Angel Hernandez, is alleged to have shouted at a couple cycling to get off the road as he drove his vehicle at a woman, apparently on purpose.

The man she was riding with then opened fire on the driver –carrying a concealed weapon is permitted in Texas under licence, although even that requirement will be scrapped from 1 September.

A police officer at the scene was reported as saying: “He was in fear of his life, and he was trying to defend himself.”

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement Sports Pyrotechnics Guns Pedal Power Bicycling ]

Interesting: Juul: Taking Academic Corruption to a New Level

The e-cigarette company bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal, with all the articles written by authors on its payroll, to ‘prove’ that its product has a public benefit.

The journal is American Journal of Health Behavior, Juul apparently paid $51k which included $6.5k to make the issue public access.

The issue is at https://ajhb.org/wp-content/up...1/04/AJHB_JUUL_Special_Issue.pdf

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design ]

RT Sarah Lazarus @sarahclazarus

you can’t have an olympics with no spectators where the fastest woman is in timeout for smoking weed. that is a PE class

[ related topics: Drugs Sports ]

Oh, look, human trafficking: How the FBI played a role in the capture of Princess Latifa of Dubai

"Shoot me here! Don't take me back!" Princess Latifa – whose full name is Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum – screamed during the raid in March 2018 as the armed men bound her wrists. They had been sent by her father, the billionaire prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and authoritarian ruler of the Emirate of Dubai.

Despite her pleas, confirmed by two eyewitnesses who traveled with her aboard the U.S.-flagged yacht Nostromo, the princess was dragged off the vessel and returned to Dubai and her father's rule.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement ]

Marginalia is a search engine that evaluates quality by looking at the number of <script> tags on a page, and using that as an inverse. It's impressing me.

Via.

[ related topics: Machinery ]

More spilling out of the horrors that is Portland's policing system: An Investigator of Police Shootings Now Faces Possible Criminal Indictment — Detective Erik Kammerer is perhaps best known for his helmet number. But he also plays an integral role in Multnomah County’s criminal justice system.

Portland Police Detective Erik Kammerer’s Alleged Use of Force at Protests Is “Under Review” by Oregon DOJ, Says DA’s Office

WW has previously reported extensively on allegations that Kammerer, also known as “Officer 67″ for his helmet number, used excessive force against protesters. Last month, a Portland man named Elijah Warren filed a lawsuit against Kammerer and the city for negligence and battery, alleging that Kammerer hit him in the back of a head with a baton outside of Warren’s home last September.

[ related topics: Current Events Law Enforcement ]

An interesting look back to last summer, when the Seattle Police were engaged in war against the citizens of the city, and read this interesting look at the internal politics where one faction of the police went rogue against the chain of command and pulled out of a precinct building in the hopes that protesters would burn it down, in order to blame the action on the Mayor's office.

We know who made the call to leave Seattle Police’s East Precinct last summer, finally

[ related topics: Politics History Law Enforcement Seattle ]

No friends-in-common, generic profile, nothing suspicious at all about this, no sireee bob. Facebook can flag year old landscape pics as "inappropriate", but not catch stuff like this...

[ related topics: Photography ]

I was remiss in waiting this long to post this here: Dave Lampert, Inventor of the Sybian Sex Aid, Dead at 90.

According to his website, Lampert, a professional dance instructor, initially came up with the idea for the device to enhance female orgasm during penetrative sex. “In the beginning, Dave’s interest in developing the Sybian was purely seeing a need for something to help women experience orgasms, and many of them,” his daughter, Bunny Lampert, tells Rolling Stone. “He wanted women to be in control of their own sexuality and responsibility for their sexual health and orgasms.”

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Health Sociology Current Events California Culture ]

as a...

   user

I want...

   paginated complex search results where the page isn't reflected in the URL

so that...

   use of the back button means I have to figure out which page of search results I was on to find the next Jira issue.

Just playing with my resaw technique. I've seen some cool work with marquetry done in wood of this sort of thickness, and then resawn for a book-matched mirrored accent, and it'd be nice to be confident enough in my abilities to risk pieces that way.

[ related topics: Books Photography Work, productivity and environment Woodworking ]

Half a day to get the code working using the command-line tools, an as-yet-unknown time to figure out all the auth and credentials and crap sorted to use it from application code. #fml

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

You assume a lot about our company structure, there, Google Cloud Platform

[ related topics: Photography ]

So I became aware of the Ivermectin and COVID-19 thing a few weeks ago, looked into it, thought "huh, the people behind this seem kinda skeevy, but the results they're reporting might be useful". Looks like it was one giant troll after all: Huge study supporting ivermectin as Covid treatment withdrawn over ethical concerns

It appeared that the authors had run entire paragraphs from press releases and websites about ivermectin and Covid-19 through a thesaurus to change key words. “Humorously, this led to them changing ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome’ to ‘extreme intense respiratory syndrome’ on one occasion,” Lawrence said.

and

“The authors claimed they conducted the study between the 8th of June and 20th of September 2020, however most of the patients who died were admitted into hospital and died before the 8th of June according to the raw data. The data was also terribly formatted, and includes one patient who left hospital on the non-existent date of 31/06/2020.”

Also, what is the world comin to when The Guardian is referencing Grftr.news? Why Was a Major Study on Ivermectin for COVID-19 Just Retracted?

When opening what the authors claim is their original data the first thing that any reader notices is that it’s remarkably complete. In many columns data for all patients are fully listed. The second thing the reader will likely notice is that the original data do not match the author’s public results. In three of the four study arms measuring patient death as an outcome, the numbers between the paper and original data differ.

[ related topics: Ethics Current Events ]

Coworker's response to "this feature doesn't work" was to tap on his yellow pad. I think this needs to be a reaction GIF.

[ related topics: Work, productivity and environment ]

I mean, sure, Bitcoin mining is using huge amounts of electricity and destroying the planet, but have you ever run "top" and seen how much CPU XCode uses while it's sitting idle?

[ related topics: Cool Science Space & Astronomy ]

The Effect of Adult Entertainment Establishments on Sex Crime: Evidence from New York City:

Abstract In this paper we study how the presence of adult entertainment establishments affects the incidence of sex crimes. We build a high-frequency daily and weekly panel that combines the exact location of non-self-reported sex crimes with the day of opening and exact location of adult entertainment establishments in New York City. We find that these businesses decrease sex crime by 13% per police precinct one week after the opening, and have no effect on other types of crime. The results suggest that the reduction is mostly driven by potential sex offenders frequenting these establishments rather than committing crimes.

https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/ueab042

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Invention and Design Law Enforcement New York ]

RT Alex Plank @alexplank

I noticed an elephant rocking at the zoo and said “look, they’re stimming. That elephant must be autistic”

My friend said “No, they do that because they’re in captivity and bored / stressed by the environment. They’re out of their natural habitat”

Umm, why do you think I do it?

[ related topics: Nature and environment ]

The Sonoma County emergency info page stopped updating their 7 day average of new cases per 100k on June 15, but looking at the data that is published, looks like about 9.5 per day. I'mma keep masking for a while.

[ related topics: Invention and Design ]

I hope Gil Scott-Heron's heirs are seeing something for all the "Whitey on the Moon" overdubs that current events are inspiring.

https://noclip.website/ WebGL flythroughs of the maps of various 3d games.

[ related topics: Games Graphics Maps and Mapping ]

There are eight different types of USB-C to USB-C cables, if you're having trouble keeping your collection of physically indistinguishable but electrically different cables organized, here's a proposal for standardized USB-C Cable Colour Codes. A little nail polish for color and you'll be able to figure out which cable does what.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Dear Jira: I do not care how many days ago a comment on an issue was made. I'm trying to reference reports to git comments. Freakin' *always* show me the date and time without making me hover.

RT put the tampons in the bathrooms Todd @sportsbroad

Dude talking about his big impressive rocket plans for seemingly forever and irl it takes about 10 minutes and doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen before is just dating after thirty

[ related topics: Todd Gemmell Space & Astronomy ]

I mean maybe you can make the argument that the cobblestones are an ankle breaking nightmare, but Water Street needs to be a delivery-only alley that prioritizes pedestrians.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Pornhub has just launched a museum guide for classical nudes

Adult entertainers narrate the NSFW audio guides to famous erotic paintings in the National Gallery, the Met and the Louvre

Pornhub — Classic Nudes

Some people think of museums as boring, stuffy or dull. But what if we told you they housed a collection of priceless porn? Welcome to Classic Nudes, Pornhub’s interactive guide to some of the sexiest scenes in history at the world’s most famous museums. Join us as we tour the most respected institutions in western art, guiding you past all the prude paintings and going to directly to the good stuff: representations of the naked body in all its artistic glory. Because porn may not be considered art, but some art can definitely be considered porn.

A trailer, of sorts: Pornhub Presents Classic Nudes with Cicciolina (YouTube video)

The Louvre and Ufizi have filed lawsuits

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Music Erotic Sexual Culture Movies History Nudity Current Events Art & Culture Douglas Adams Video ]

If you had any doubt that these complaints about a worker shortage were about bringing back slavery... well... The Guardian: Companies claim there’s a labor shortage. Their solution? Prisoners

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Current Events ]

Dang it, my reading queue is too long already: Prostasia Foundation: Black women in pornography: an interview with Mireille Miller-Young.

Mireille Miller-Young is the author of A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women in Pornography

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Weblogs Beer ]

The picture here of the growth rings showing the regular burns pre-1855, and the lack of that burning afterwards, is particularly interesting: We must burn the West to save it — How an ancient American Indian practice can reduce the risk of massive wildfires.

[ related topics: California Culture Pyrotechnics ]

Mostly, I'm watching for my mom's use of language to change: Anti-vaccine groups changing into 'dance parties' on Facebook to avoid detection

The ban-evasion efforts on Facebook and Instagram are ratcheting up as the White House has increased pressure on the social media platforms to do more to contain vaccine misinformation.

Twitter thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/one...ore__/status/1418016654580199427

[ related topics: Current Events Journalism and Media Race Real Estate ]

Don't use biometrics as the sole factor in security: Judge forces US Capitol rioter to unlock laptop seized by FBI

The judge granted the Justice Department's request to place Capitol riot defendant Guy Reffitt in front of his laptop so they could use facial recognition to unlock the device. The maneuver happened after the hearing ended and Reffitt's lawyer confirmed to CNN that the laptop was unlocked.

Zero sympathy, the guy sounds like a real piece of shit, but a good reminder that biometrics can be compelled.

[ related topics: Politics Law Law Enforcement Gambling ]

A Defunct Video Hosting Site Is Flooding Normal Websites With Hardcore Porn

Stories on major news sites like ‘The Washington Post,’ and ‘New York Magazine’ currently have porn embedded in them.

The site was VidMe, or Vid.me? A YouTube competitor that lasted for a few years, went out of business, and got bought by, apparently, a porn site. Hat tip to Tara for pointing it out to me at https://twitter.com/ResearchBuzz/status/1418322513457782791

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Robotics Invention and Design Current Events Embedded Devices New York Video ]

First job out of high school was running a stat camera in a print shop. Every piece of paper was charged to a cost center. I tried to get tasks to 5 minutes, but with timecard logging everything took at least ten minutes.

Some days Jira gives me that same feeling.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Photography Heinlein Sports ]

I remember when they used to repeat old lore about being unable to build muscle when you're older: The Guardian: A new start after 60: ‘I was sick, tired and had lost myself – until I began lifting weights at 71’

Joan Macdonald has not always looked like a bodybuilder. At 71, she weighed 90kg (14st 4lb), and had rising blood pressure and kidney troubles. She was also on medication for cholesterol and acid reflux, and her doctor wanted to double the dose.

Her daughter, Michelle, expressed Macdonald’s dilemma bluntly. “You’re going to end up like your mother did in a nursing home!” she told Macdonald. “And people are going to have to look after you. Do you want that?”

Via MeFi

[ related topics: Health Invention and Design Skating ]

RT Prof. Christina Pagel @chrischirp

LONG COVID THREAD:

The people running the BBC Horizon "Great British Intelligence Test" challenge on over 80,000 people took the opportunity to see if they could detect any differences by whether people had had covid or not...

The Lancet: EClinicalMedicine: Cognitive deficits in people who have recovered from COVID-19 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101044

Findings People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls when controlling for age, gender, education level, income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety. The deficits were of substantial effect size for people who had been hospitalised (N = 192), but also for non-hospitalised cases who had biological confirmation of COVID-19 infection (N = 326). Analysing markers of premorbid intelligence did not support these differences being present prior to infection. Finer grained analysis of performance across sub-tests supported the hypothesis that COVID-19 has a multi-domain impact on human cognition.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Theater & Plays Monty Python Sports Education Gambling ]

If you are anywhere near the Sebastopol Center For The Arts, get over this afternoon to see the whale. It is an amazing piece of art.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Art & Culture ]

So I can remember it: Jos Sances, "Or, The Whale". Powerful, and the picture doesn't capture the in person experience of exploring it.

[ related topics: Photography ]

Getting mixed messages here

[ related topics: Photography ]

Kind of amazing to think that we're sitting in the flood zone

[ related topics: Photography ]

Finishing out the mini vacation with a hot chocolate at Grand Central Petaluma

[ related topics: Photography Chocolate ]

Among the spoils from this mini-vacation is "History of Petaluma: A California river town", for $20 from a used book store in Sebastopol. Included in the revelations: people have been complaining about the quality of the streets here since at least 1861.

[ related topics: Books California Culture ]

"It is a matter of no astonishment to us that wells should dry up in a place so like Sodom as is Santa Rosa." Samuel Cassidy, editor of the Petaluma Argus, in September 1864.

Slate Star Codex: The Control Group Is Out Of Control:

The idea was to plan an experiment together, with both of them agreeing on every single tiny detail. They would then go to a laboratory and set it up, again both keeping close eyes on one another. Finally, they would conduct the experiment in a series of different batches. Half the batches (randomly assigned) would be conducted by Dr. Schlitz, the other half by Dr. Wiseman. Because the two authors had very carefully standardized the setting, apparatus and procedure beforehand, “conducted by” pretty much just meant greeting the participants, giving the experimental instructions, and doing the staring.

The results? Schlitz’s trials found strong evidence of psychic powers, Wiseman’s trials found no evidence whatsoever.

via https://mobile.twitter.com/NLRG_/status/1419707766214696962

[ related topics: Space & Astronomy Aviation - Helicopters ]

Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases: Case Report — Development of Internal Carotid Artery Dissection During Masturbation

Abstract Sexual intercourse is known as one of the daily activities triggering spontaneous cervicocephalic artery dissection (sCAD), however, it has been unclear if masturbation can trigger the development of sCAD. Herein, we report a case of sCAD in association with masturbation. A 51-year-old right-handed man developed subarachnoid hemorrhage during masturbation. The dissection of the left internal carotid artery was evident on the 9th hospital day. Finally, he was treated with stenting and coiling and discharged with a good prognosis.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Erotic Sexual Culture Law Model Building ]

Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI

Prosecutors in Chicago are being forced to withdraw evidence generated by the technology, which led to the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo earlier this year.

[ related topics: Law Enforcement Artificial Intelligence ]

The more I learn about Prohibition, the more I subscribe to the narrative that a nation with a culture so fucked up that everyone was over-self-medicating decided to double-down on the fucked up bits of the culture.

[ related topics: Sociology California Culture ]

Who's Behind Dallas Justice Now's 'Don't Send White Kids to Ivy League' Controversy? | Dallas Observer

She may be onto something. Scant public information is available about Dallas Justice Now or its leadership. The group hasn’t replied to the Observer’s inquires, but the group’s website traces back to a right-wing PR firm called Arena. Online research also connects Arena to Keep Dallas Safe, an organization run by a confirmed astroturfer, suggesting there may be deeper connections between these efforts in terms of funders and strategy.

So, yeah, turns out Tucker Carlson's latest outrage is manufactured by right-wingers. Go figure.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Bay Area Current Events Law Enforcement Race ]

Huh. Obviously butterflies are a motif I'm fond of, and I'm gonna have to revisit this site's favicon and do some other looking at content. After reading this you'll never look at butterfly illustrations and accents in the same way again: Please, enough with the dead butterflies!

[ related topics: Butterflies ]

This is a fascinating little read: This Man Does Not Make Poppers — For decades, poppers have been the go-to sex drug for gay men. But where do they come from?

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture Health ]

I understand how some decisions in NeXTStep ended up there: Young brash programmers thinking they're doing amazing things by pushing the envelope. I do not understand why some of those flaws ended up carried over into Mac Cocoa. And I hate NSSplitView with a white hot passion.

[ related topics: Macintosh Race ]

OH in the office: "Dan found the magic. Apple will probably break the magic, but..."

[ related topics: Apple Computer Clowns ]

Facebook usefully telling me that I should probably unfriend someone...

[ related topics: Photography ]

How the coronavirus infects cells — and why Delta is so dangerous

Scientists are unpicking the life cycle of SARS-CoV-2 and how the virus uses tricks to evade detection.

[ related topics: virus Nature and environment Pedal Power Bicycling ]

I have two books on my nightstand right now: Joseph R. Gusfield's "Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement", and Byung-Chul Han's "The disappearance of rituals".

The former is a fascinating look at how group identity drove the Temperance movement. How lay-led organizations took moral leadership and group identity from churches, and in so doing made morality more binary. It's also fascinating for language, it was written in 1963 and revised in 1986, and I have a couple of times had to look for footnotes for a little more context so that I could understand better what the author meant by "Indian", for instance.

The latter is a more recent lament about how social media is fragmenting culture, and how spontaneous culture is destroying rituals. I'm reading it slowly, the way it (and the translation) use language is sometimes hard to suss out.

But I suspect they're actually writing about the same thing, and Han is too caught up in his privilege to understand that.

[ related topics: Politics Books Ethics Sociology Writing Journalism and Media California Culture ]

Ram 2500 Drivers Have the Most DUIs, More Than Twice the National Average: Report

Roughly 1 in 22 Ram 2500 drivers have been cited with a DUI before, a study claims.

Insurify: 10 Cars with the most DUIs

[ related topics: Current Events Automobiles ]